Day 4

The kids and I had a pretty quiet day. The three of us were up at about 4:00am. Yuk. Oystein woke up at 2 and couldn't fall back to sleep. He ended up finally sleeping another hour or two before heading off to work about 8:00.

The kids and I took the tram downtown to shop. We walked the main shopping street (Karl Johans Gate) and went into a souveniour shop to buy postcards. I also found a store that sold curling irons. Oystein said to just buy one here because otherwise we would have to buy a voltage converter for mine. The cost would be about the same. Although I don't fix my hair everyday, I usually feel better if I curl it and since we are on vacation, I feel like I actually have more time to do it than at home. We'll see at the days progress.

We had some Gelatto for lunch and bought strawberries and plums for dessert. :-) We headed back to the hotel for a nap. Alex and I both slept; Nathan played his DS.

After nap we just hung out a bit. I logged into the computer, both kids played on it too and then I read to them. When Oystein got back from work we went out to dinner at Pepe's Pizza. He really wanted to go at least once. Then we headed to the shopping area. The only thing we bought was a charger for the DS's. It's a long, boring story, but what we brought that should have worked didn't. We decided the cost was worth buying the charger.

Nathan was in bed by 8:30 and asleep soon after. Alex is listening to music and Oystein and I are side by side in bed on our computers. LOL He's working, I'm blogging. We'll have "lights off" soon. Of course, since it's still light outside turning off the inside lights doesn't do much.

Some observations: The shops are closed on Sundays here and many of the shops also close earlier during the week then back at home. It's nice to have a less consumeristic feeling though convenience is compromised. The prices are high. Oystein said that Oslo is one of the cities in the world with the highest prices. We'll hold out to buy souveniours until we are on the West Coast.

Looking down residential streets with cars park, it's noticeable that most cars are compact or subcompact. I think I've seen only a handful of larger cars. I don't remember seeing any trucks other than delivery trucks. Of course, I'm not observing closely so I may have missed a few.

I love having it light outside all the time. In the middle of the night it isn't too bright-I would say it's like dusk at home.

Day 3

The front of our hotel:

Alex, Oystein and I woke up at a much more decent hour of 6:00am. Nathan slept until about 6:30.

Today Oystein went back to work. The kids and I went to the beach with Margrete and Alvhild. The kids had a blast in the sand and water. We're all headed to bed early again.

Norway Day 2

Here's my journal entry for day 2.

We woke up early this morning at 3:00am. It was like we all had a natural alarm clock. Oystein said he usually wakes up around this time on his first day in Oslo. Then each day increases by an hour or so. Hopefully we can sleep until 5:00am tomorrow, not 4:00.

Oystein woke up with a horrible stomach ache so we walked to a 24hr 7-11 to look for Tums and something to eat. Breakfast service here at the hotel starts at 8:00am on the weekends. We didn’t find Tums but the kids and I got something to eat. When we got back to the hotel Oystein was able to sleep for about an hour and he felt much better. The kids and I watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua on the TV and played a couple of games of hang man and memory. At 8:30 Oystein and the kids had breakfast while I rested, unable to fall asleep but still very tired. Go figure—at home I can usually nap easily. LOL We then met Alvhild and Margrete in downtown Oslo at the Palace. We walked around a bit, took a trolley guided tour through the city and ate at a park. The kids were tired so we headed back to the hotel for a rest. Oystein and I napped for about an hour but neither of the kids could sleep. They ended up reading and playing very quietly while Oystein and I dozed.

After freshening up, it was time for softies. We had waited long enough-ha ha. We found a place and ate some softies and then went to a big park. The kids were tired and we volunteered to go back to the hotel but they really wanted to go to the park. They did well and played about a half hour. Now we are back at the hotel. We were going to eat, but Alex laid on her bed and said she wanted to sleep so Oystein and Nathan went to dinner first and I went after. Alex was asleep within two minutes after Nathan and Oystein left for dinner (about 7:00pm) and slept until 6:00 the next morning. Nathan was asleep by 8:30 and Oystein and I went to bed a little after 9:00.

Day 2

at the park:

on the tour:

at the palace: (the two ladies are Oystein's angel cousin and aunt from yesterday's post)

I had a whole post typed out on my computer but I'm not going to sign up on the internet for it tonight-I'm using Oystein's. It's 9:00pm here and we are going to bed but I wanted to share a couple of pictures. I won't be able to share yesterday's or some of today's because I put them on my computer and erased them from the camera I was using before putting them on Oystein's and we don't have a flash drive. OK, perhaps TMI for my small group of readers. I'll post my post later and just share a few pics from today for now.

Norway

We’re here. I could feel the prayers of my friends! I did not even come close to a panic attack! Alex and Nathan traveled very well!

The plane to Copenhagen was 9 hours. The kids did great. They both watched a movie on the screen in front of them. Alex kept asking for dinner. I had to remind her several times that when on a plane we don’t make those decisions and she needed to be patient. She had eaten a hamburger and fries at the airport not long before we boarded so I knew she wasn’t really hungry. It was more about the experience for her. Both the kids slept for about 2-3 hours. Nathan woke up and was ready to go-not a single complaint. Alex woke up crying that she wanted to go home. It took her about an hour to wake up fully but she wasn’t yelling or being too loud. I was able to hug her and help comfort her.

In Copenhagen we had a two hour wait until our plane to Oslo left so we had a snack. Alex, Oystein and I dozed a bit on the one hour flight. Nathan played his Nintendo DS.

When we got off the plane in Oslo and left the customs area, we were surprised by Oystein’s aunt and cousin. We knew they were going to come to Oslo for a couple of days but they told us it would be on Sunday. They were an incredible blessing since we had 4 check-in bags in addition to our carry-ons of one each. We made an error on the train and ended up getting off one stop later then we should have. We had to walk a little extra so the extra hands were helpful. They went with us to our hotel and helped us get our bags in our room and then they left so we could eat and sleep. They were so thoughtful!

We changed our clothes, freshened up a bit and went to the dining room for dinner. Our hotel has free breakfast and dinner for guests. After dinner we set out in search of softies-Norwegian soft ice cream. Oystein had asked at the front desk when we checked in but he left the map in our room when we went to dinner. We found a McDonald’s that served it but their machine was broken. We decided to settle for Gelatto for the night. No one knew where we could find softies and we were tired. We headed back to the hotel after eating our dessert, got pj’s on and went to bed. The kids were a bit hyper but they must have fallen asleep pretty quickly. I was out 2 minutes after my head hit the pillow around 9:00pm. Oystein said it took him a little while to sleep but he only had to tell the kids to be quiet once or twice.

We were all awake by 3:00am and not able to fall back to sleep. Now we are taking showers and doing quiet activities. Breakfast isn’t served until 7:00am. J
I doubt most of my posts will be this detailed but I hope to post when I can. I really want to document our trip so I can make a scrapbook with more than just pictures. I want to capture our experience.

I'll try to share pictures later. I haven't been able to figure out how to compress my pictures small enough to upload on the website.

What We've Been Up To

Painting last Wednesday:

Spending time at my sister, Nichole's house. The first picture is the view from their back deck. Isn't is beautiful!?

Taking a ride on their pontoon:

The kids love playing with the dogs:

Oystein's beautiful deck:

Read these posts

Read these posts from Dawn's blog. We need to protect our parental rights.
http://dawn-thatsjustme.blogspot.com/2009/06/stop-crc.html
http://dawn-thatsjustme.blogspot.com/2009/06/update-on-my-previous-post.html

Pictures of the new deck in progress

Oystein, Kevin and George worked on the new deck last weekend. They finished over 2/3 of it and Oystein ended up taking today off to get the last section of boards on. He has more screws to put in the deck but at least it's ready for our trip. We won't have to worry about the pieces blowing away in the wind and our housesitter having to deal with it. LOL

I can't wait to get an outdoor table and chairs set and enjoy a BBQ on the deck. It'll have to wait a bit though. I don't have pictures of the final product yet. Oystein has a few things to move out of the way, then I should be able to get them.

A Whole New World

Look closely at the pictures. There seems to be something wrong with one of them.

Did you catch it? Look at what Alex is eating. Pizza! With real cheese! We spent 3 hours in the allergist's office with Alex drinking milk in increasing amounts every 10-15 minutes. She started with 1/8 tsp. and ended with 1/2 Cup. She had a couple funky bumps on her cheeks and arms at one point that cleared up very quickly. In the end, we called it a success. We do need to keep an eye on her for a few weeks at least to make sure everything stays ok but we don't anticipate any problems.

It's very weird for all of us. As Alex was eating the pizza I was thinking "She shouldn't be touching that." It's going to take some time for us to get used to this. Alex is very happy and can't wait to try a cheese stick tomorrow. We had Gelatto this afternoon but she chose two fruit flavors which are dairy free. Of course, before all this, we still wouldn't have given her the Gelatto without the third degree on ingredients and cross contamination issues (dairy free does not mean that the product doesn't contain a milk protein in it.)

We do not expect Alex to drastically change her eating habits overnight. Right now is the honeymoon phase of trying out all the new things but we don't expect she'll like everything. We'll make some concessions for a bit to give her time to get used to the new flavors while not allowing her to be too picky on what she is eating.

Wordless Wednesday